The main point of proposed approach to study ants cognitive
abilities is that our experiments provide a situation in which insects have
to transmit information quantitatively known to the experimentalist in order
to obtain food. One may estimate some properties of ant intelligence by
measuring complexity of tasks they solve in order to pass definite pieces
of information from scouts to foragers.

Our previous experiments, basing on ideas of Information Theory, have
shown that ants are able to memorize and transmit messages concerning
sequence of turns toward a trough of syrup and use the simplest regularities
to compress the information. To reveal counting and number related skills,
we suggested red wood ants Formica polyctena to transmit information
on the number and coordinates of objects. One of the experimental set-ups
consisted of a tree trunk with branches that ended in empty troughs,
except for one which was filled with syrup. Another set-up consisted of
a lattice which simulated Cartesian coordinates. The foragers of F.
polyctena were separated into teams of 5-8 individuals , each with
one scout. All laboratory ants were marked with coloured labels. To start
the experiment, an ant scout was placed at the randomly numbered trough
containing food and then returned to the nest on its own. The duration
of the contact between foragers and the scout was measured. Then we removed
the scout and the foragers had to search for the food by themselves. The
experiments were so devised as to eliminate all possible ways that may
help to find food, except for distant homing. It turns out that the ants
are able to count within several tens, and transmit this information to
their nestmates. The analysis of time duration of ants contacts enable
us to create a hypothesis of how they use numbers and coordinates in their
communication. We suppose that only a few highly social ant species use
such a complex communication system based on cognitive processes. At the
same time, we believe that the experimental schemes described can be used
to study the communication systems and numerical competence of other animals.